One stormy afternoon in the Northern Florida panhandle, I found myself making tempting tidbits for the baby screech owl perched on my son’s shoulder as they sprawled on the floor in front of the TV. Chop Chop ruffled his mottled feathers and with a shudder, gulped down meatball after meatball. Uttering a throaty “chop chop” – the sound from whence he got his name – he demanded more.

     This particular owl was found in a primordial swamp pond, about 75 miles up from the Gulf of Mexico. He’d spent his first hours screeching forlornly, as spiders, big as your hand, made their scritchy scratching way over the trunks of tall Cypress trees as they bathed their knobby knees in the cool green-gold waters of the bayou.

     Now, you might ask, what was a baby screech owl doing with a boy for a play mate, and TV for entertainment? Holmes County, Florida, is a world away from Palm Beach, and the only Cadillacs here are likely to be covered in Kudzu. Paid employment is hard to come by if you’re not related to the good ‘ole boy who does the hiring. This fact has a way of persuading folks to turn to the swamps to fill the freezer.

     Now you won’t find this kind of swamp pond sitting by the side of the road easy like. They are usually down the sorriest excuse ever made for a road. As you slowly pick your way in, bucking over humps and dipping deep into axle-swallowing pot holes, scrub pines line the pathway, set so close they reach into your car windows to snatch out an eyeball at the first opportunity.

     You might spot a few tin-roofed shacks scattered here and there. Shacks inhabited by swamp people. Passing by you wonder how people manage in such humble surroundings; no ceilings, carpets or wall coverings; playing out their roles in dimly lit rooms, light bulbs dangling forlornly from wrinkled dried up wires.
 
     But the heart of these simple dwellings, is the kitchen with its massive wood stove, a basket of “lyter’d” wood set by the hearth, and in the center, an oilcloth covered kitchen table.  Here, game is butchered, fish cleaned, vegetables canned, biscuits beat, babies changed, and friendships formed, as girls from eight to eighty chatter over coffee; love, guidance, and know-how trickling down from generation to generation. The only running water is the kind you run out and pump yourself, and an outhouse is a reality, not just a faded memory. If you take time to stop and visit, you’ll become friends with those fiercely independent but God-fearing folks who have a canny way of stretching out a dollar, and by listening closely, learn how you too can gather sustenance from the larder of the Lord.

     It was in just such a way we determined most anything living in the swamp and not protected by law, could legally be eaten, or sold to the Snake Man down Caryville way. We spent balmy evenings drifting lazily around on isolated swamps and waterways catching thick powerful water moccasins, lithe and wary rattlers, and the beautifully decked out king and corn snakes. We searched for box turtles, and mud turtles. We even ran catfish “trot” lines for lightning fast alligator turtles whose snapping jaws could amputate your finger quicker than you can blink, but fried up better than chicken from the local Piggly Wiggly. We caught frogs; giant croaking bullfrogs, iridescent green tree frogs, and warty old toady frogs who seemed to fall from the sky like pennies from heaven with every summer rain.

     But back to the owl. It was on such a foraging expedition on an early summer evening, that Jay and his Dad heard the screeching way down the bayou well before they even came close to the pond. When they came upon him, he was slap dab in the middle of the swamp pond. There he sat, sturdy talons clinging fiercely to a lofty cypress branch. His mother hung limply beneath him, snarled and tangled in a catfish line left by some careless fisherman.  Jay, being the more agile of the two, was elected to do the climbing, and with much hopping from limb to limb, with the aid of a little cussing and a long-handled fish net, the little fellow was snagged, dropped safely into the boat, and popped into the cooler. As he still didn’t know diddly about flying, there wasn’t much one could do but pack him up and bring him home.

     Having outlived four kids, “Look Ma, can we keep it?” was a question I reckon I’d heard once or twice before in my lifetime, and providing it didn’t slither, have eight legs, and wasn’t too much bigger than a bread box, it was okay by me. He was a pretty little thing, sporting soft speckled grey and tan feathers, slender legs cloaked in a silvery velvet fuzz. Circles of tan, black, and grey surrounded his large trusting heavy lidded eyes. Learning to live with an owl wasn’t that much of a chore. We built him a perch, gave him a water dish, dug out a stack of old newspaper, then consulted with the closest zoo to learn more about the care and feeding of baby owls. He dined on fish, hamburger balls, pieces of chicken, and other carnivorous treats, and if you weren’t quite fast enough, with his powerful beak, he’d occasionally try a finger on for size.
 Pesky, our hunting cat – but that’s another story – consistently generous about leaving dead rodents on the back stoop, provided a steady supply of owl snacks. Although, I must say, watching an owl devour a mouse in one gulp tends to curb one’s own appetite some.  Cute as he was, and as surely as he had snuck his way into our hearts, we had to remember he was a creature of the wild, and we knew we couldn’t keep him very long. He had to learn to fly, to hunt his own food, in order to fulfill his role as a bird of prey and take his rightful place in the general scheme of things in the steamy swamp ponds from whence he came.   By the time the finger snacking habit had begun to get a little “out of hand” we knew it was time to say goodbye, and too soon, the sad day arrived. Tucked safely in the arms of a kindly gentleman who worked with rescued wildlife, Chop Chop was taken off to “Bird School.” Here he would slowly but surely learn to make the complex transition from the relative safety of captivity, to fly free once more in the dark secretive, but wildy dangerous swamp ponds once more